


The Expressions We Choose

by aperture_living



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Gore, Skinning, Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperture_living/pseuds/aperture_living
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first mask Zacharie attempted was a mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Expressions We Choose

The first mask Zacharie attempted was a mess. He had learned how to make them from one of the few real books that still existed (so many falsehoods in a world like this, funny that), and the directions were cryptic, vague. Skinning wasn’t a trade one could pick up just on a whim, and taxidermy was a pipedream without the proper tools; truly the rabbit would have suffered if it wasn’t already long dead. A sword wasn’t going to work, not on these carefully deft lines, precise cutting. 

He gave up when the skin broke about the edges, ragged and cracked, the skin too dry to even be usable. It had taken days to get all the blood out from under his nails, and after the first two washes, he left it there. A reminder. _Do better._

Zacharie tried it again, this time with one of the cow corpses from Zone 1 (they would never miss it, he was fairly certain, and if they did, let Dedan bitch), and that worked marginally better. He took his time, took a scalpel along small areas, cut the half face free and doused it enough chemicals to keep it flexible as it dried, a leather to play with. Peeling off his gloves, he found something to entertain himself with for a few days before returning, checking in on the progress.

Better. Not perfect, but for a time he had half of a mask, half a cow to hide half his secrets.

He practiced with a few more creatures before coming across a fresh Elsen (a tip from an unnamed source, something that involved the exchange of credits because they had heard he “was looking”), and the body was still delightfully warm, still seeping blood from its fatality. Smiling, he slung it over his shoulder and carried the corpse to one of his workrooms, this one nestled safely in Zone 0. When the Judge came scratching, he ignored it in favor of laying the carcass on a metal slab, then snapping on gloves that rose to his elbows and a rubber apron that took care of most of the mess. Overhead, the light buzzed with musical intent, something he could hum to, and taking a blade in his hand, he set to work.

A skinned Elsen looked different than the other bodies he was used to, and it made him pause with a clinical eye. Their flesh was thinner, more delicate than the hide of a cow, but there were fewer contours with their flat, symmetrical face. This was, in its own way, a holy grail, and he wasn’t sure when he would be able to procure another body like this for something of his nature. He made certain to take his time, twice as much as normal, and every few hours he could hear the Judge worriedly calling through the door, as if he were on some sort of timer. 

As Zacharie finished, he had his first real mask, one that he let cure in the light as he snapped off gore-covered gloves and removed the apron from his body. When he tried it on a few days later, it was like coming home, the shadows where the eyes had been hiding his own, the face caught and stretched out, the elastic that wound around the back of his head and tangled in his dark hair... it was all just what he wanted. If only the Elsen didn’t look so perpetually frightened, it might have been his favorite mask. 

He learned his most important lesson then: _expressions worth wearing were not born to everyone_.

Still, the Elsen mask did its job, made it possible to work, and he bided his time, let it pass him until the opportunity came for fight with the Toad King. It took everything in him not to ruin that magnificent face during the fight, not to let a single thing happen to it; when he saw it, he knew he _had_ to have it. This was the expression he was born for. This was the one that should have been on his face all the while.

The body had been a hefty drag, had started to smell of gasses and death by the time he pulled it into his shop, but it was a price and everything had a price. He didn’t bother eating, didn’t bother drinking even as he stood over the slab breathing hard, heavy; the creative impulse made the basic needs of survival secondary. The Judge came scratching shortly after, but Zacharie was rushing to put on his gear, to get everything set out and ready, so he told him not to wait as he would be awhile.

A “week” could definitely be construed as “awhile” to some people.

When he emerged, the Judge smiled and wound around his legs. Said it was perfect. Said it was fitting, if one could pardon the pun. 

Zacharie only laughed. He could still smell some of the chemicals, could smell the leather, the inherent death that wouldn’t fade for some time at this impossible distance to a dead man’s face. The inside rubbed at his own skin, chafed it around the cheeks, but he didn’t dare loosen it; it was perfect where it was, just like the unevenness of the mask that came with a human’s imperfect skill. But it was his, his beloved favorite, and when he looked in the mirror, he knew he had a fixed and perfect expression that was befitting of him. 

People remarked how good the factories were at making false masks, mass-producing such a thing, citing his own as another bought good. He didn’t bother to correct them. If they touched it or drew close enough to catch its foul odor, they would know, there would be no way _not_ to know. In that case, it was such a good reason that he kept them at arm’s length, he supposed.

He wore his prize all the time, morning, noon, night, carried it on his face as though it was a gift from a god. The Judge said nothing over how much he wore it, the Elsen he met said nothing, no one commented to his face, but maybe that was because they were afraid it was their face he would wear next, or because there was something on the horizon, something awful, something dark, darker than a man in a mask. 

Something like a man with a bat and a mission. 

And how the Batter looked at him! A mix of confusion and disdain, that holy concoction that made the late king’s expression so perfect. He laughed behind it, grinned, all teeth that made his cheeks rise and rub raw against the inside, and when he handed a bat and some Lucky Tickets over, he watched the purifier’s nose twitch.

“Is that your mask?” he asked, voice neutral, composed.

“Oh, yes!” Zacharie countered. “It’s a very rare thing, you see. The only one like it in all the world. I have to use certain rubs on it to keep it like new. Do you like it?”

“It smells,” the Batter said, slipping the tickets into his pocket and turning towards the door. He stopped before leaving, the door open, and looked over his shoulder with a barest of grins. “Yes.” 

When he was alone, Zacharie saw the end for what it was, and hidden behind another face, his grin fell away. 

After Japhet was slaughtered, he waited until the Batter was gone, til the world was still, before moving along the whitened halls and blackened outlines. He had brought his tools with him, and sitting beside the bird at the top of the world was strangely comforting. No sound, no wind, nothing, just the sound of his breathing, heavy behind the confines of a toad’s face. 

“Death doesn’t suit you, dear Valerie,” he muttered, glad that the cat’s face was stretched out by the vomiting of Japhet’s body; it would make it easier to mold, to work with. “Let me help you.” 

It was so strange, blood in a white, white world. It was like noise, loud as trumpets with its shocking saturation of drastic red color, and Zacharie was glad to momentarily ruin something so ideal, something bred from a fanatic’s dream. Nothing personal, truly; this was something else entirely, a desire to sustain the life they all had lived even if they were on borrowed time. 

He knew it. He could smell it, even behind the mask. 

Taking the face home, he worked on it, dried it, stretched it in his workshop where dozens of other eye-less faces stared back at home from their homes on pedestals, all lining the walls. The Judge was gone, gone in mourning, and Zacharie found he missed the scratching at the door, missed the meows that signaled there was something out there that cared for him, for the creature under the mask, and not what he could do, what he could sell. 

This would be his tribute. This would be the preservation of something so important to someone, even if that person, that Judge, wouldn’t see it. 

But the murderer would. The Batter would. The Batter would see this almost feline nervous expression (one not fitting to wear for all of time, but it was different, it was changed, it was good for what he needed it to be) and would feel, what? Revulsion? Guilt? 

No. Zacharie knew better than to expect something so frighteningly human from a creature like that. No, he wanted only one thing, one thing.

When the Batter finally returned, he stopped, stared, paused with nothing on his lips. Speechless for a few heartbeats. And wasn’t that all they could ever hope for?

The roughness of the newest mask in his collection rubbed against his face as he smiled, the smell still strong on this one, stronger than the toad’s. As a point of contention, he meowed just to watch the Batter grimace and roll his eyes, a reaction Zacharie wasn’t expecting.

“Stupid,” the Batter hissed, but there was something hidden underneath, a glare just under the surface. Annoyance. Curiosity. Sound in a fog. The loathing was apparent, and the merchant watched as the purifier’s nose twitched, wrinkled, and he remembered the _Yes_ from before.

Maybe he had a new favorite mask after all.


End file.
